Up-and-coming Canadian rockers play Newport this Sunday

The Glorious Sons are a strong up-and-coming act out of Canada (Kingston, Ontario, to be exact) with a Rock sound that’s a little rough around the edges, just the way they want it.
The band isn’t trying to fit into a cookie cutter world of the music industry but deliver an authentic sound that connects with audiences. The Glorious Sons are currently on a U.S. club tour, but one listen to their new EP shows big things are on the horizon. They are currently touring with 10 Years, Otherwise and Luminoth. The tour comes to the Thompson House in Newport this Sunday (tickets/more info here). Get on the bandwagon early and come out to enjoy a night of great Rock music.
CityBeat spoke with frontman Brett Emmons to discuss the grind to get to where the band is today.
CityBeat: I know you are on this tour with 10 Years and Otherwise. How did this tour come together?
Brett Emmons: Our agent put the offer on the table for us back when we were on tour with Airborne in Canada. I am not really sure how it all came together but we knew if we went on tour with (10 Years) in the States, they wanted to come on tour with us in Canada. We have a pretty big draw in Canada whereas nobody really knew us in the States before we started this tour. So we sat down for breakfast and started talking with each other and we decided we were going to do the tour. We looked forward to it and two months later we were on the road with 10 Years.
CB: I recently listened to the album this week and I have to be honest, I think it is one of the best things I have heard in a long time and I have specific questions about some songs on the album.
BE: Thank you.
CB: One of my favorite songs on the album was “Amigo.” Could you tell me a little bit of the backstory behind that song and how it came about?
BE: One thing when you are writing tunes, at least for us, it follows like every other song, a loose story with a lot of feelings. When I start writing, I never know what the ending is going to be like or what the song is going to completely look like. I know what the song’s direction is going to be but I never start the story at the end. It is about my time in Halifax when I was there a couple years and there was a particular person that I was hanging around with a lot and writing a lot of music with. It’s about his fall from grace during the time I was hanging out with him and my fall from grace as well. It is about watching someone with so much potential self-doubt themselves and losing it all because they were scared.
CB: You brought up writing the lyrics. Can you talk about the band’s process and how you put the songs together and write together?
BE: We all do help with lyrics, too. If there is a lyric that is not covered right, everybody has their input; there are five guys and five guys who think they are songwriters and so you are never really short on ideas.
Usually somebody will bring something to the jam room and we will either be jiving with it or not jiving with it. What happens, someone will start playing something or singing something and somebody else will join in and a third person will join in and you will have five guys trying to whittle this broad thing into a song. Other times it may start with a bass riff or playing. We don’t have an equation for it and I don’t think we should. It is basically about spontaneity and just people working together doing their thing. Everybody has their job and everybody likes to do it. It comes pretty easy right now. Who knows? I imagine when we are 40 we will be dead tired.
CB: The thing I felt was interesting about the album was all the songs sound different. Sometimes I get albums and every song sounds the same, basically. I thought it was unique that, song to song, there was a different flavor you would get while listening.
BE: Yeah. That is what we thought, too. A lot of bands tend to use digital songs now and try to find what their sound is. We just rock and roll. We didn’t know what we wanted to sound like or what we wanted to be. We are just five guys playing instruments trying to write songs and whatever way they come out is the way we want people to hear them.
When you listen to the Stones, not every song on a Stones album sounds the same. If you think about that, nowadays, I feel like too many people are trying to fit themselves into a genre rather than finding out what happens.
CB: When did you know that this is what you wanted to do for your career?
BE: In high school I was asked to sing for a band and I didn’t know how to sing. I couldn’t sing worth a shit and I started singing with that band. They kicked me out of the band because they wanted a real singer. I bought an acoustic guitar and I took one of my favorite songs and I practiced it for months. I practiced singing it and I practiced playing it until my voice sounded good enough. Then I put a band together and we beat (the band I was kicked out of) in the Battle of the Bands and I won best singer at the show. For the first time I put together a song and started singing and realized how fun it was and I could be myself. When I started writing songs, I could put myself on paper and give myself a sound and words. That’s when I realized I wanted to do it.
Growing up my brother (Glorious Sons guitarist Jay Emmons) was in a band, a guitarist in a band. I grew up watching him play my entire life. When I really started playing, we started jamming together. It was always a dream of ours to throw a band together and play music together for a living. We didn’t know it would be this good but we just wanted to pay our bills with music and write songs. That has ended up happening and we are pretty happy.
CB: I have been talking to several bands that have siblings that play together. Are there any issues with that, being with your brother all the time?
BE: No. We argue a little bit because we are brothers and the most open with each other. He has always been my best friend and my rock. I grew up with him, taking advice from him, basically worshipping the ground he walked on. We are best friends. Playing in a band with your brother can go one of two ways — you can be assholes to each other or be real and good to each other, which is what we do, even though we are assholes sometimes.
CB: You said earlier you played one song over and over, what was that song?
BE: It’s a song called “Wheat Kings” by Tragically Hip, it’s a Canadian band. I’m not sure you would know them but they are Rock royalty, maybe Canada’s favorite band of all time within country. They come down here and play but in Canada every show they play is in a sold-out stadium.
CB: One of the songs on the album is “The Union,” which is also the title of the album. It seems to have a social and political message. Was that on purpose?
BE: No, not really. I’d like to clear this up, so I’m glad you asked. A few people get a bad taste in their mouth about the chorus: “I’ll never join the union because I never wanted it easy.” When you listen to the song it is just a metaphor for life and growing up and wanting to be different and still wanting to question things and question society and be the dirty little kid that you were when you were young and not caring about what people thought. There are some ties to the subject a little bit. My father’s shop was almost shut down when we were younger by a union. It was kind of an ode to him because he was able to maintain his shop without the union. He went from having 10 employees to having one employee. We went through some hard times but he was able to keep the family together and keep the shop up and running and to this day provide a comfortable life for us.
It is not a political stand against any union in any way. It is about growing up and not doing what everyone wants you to do.
CB: A lot of bands are collaborating now and playing together. I know you guys are just starting out but is there anybody you’d like to do a dream collaboration with?
BE: I’d love to pick Bruce Springsteen’s brain a little bit. Words, mostly. He is one of my favorites of all time. That is a huge dream though. In Canada, we collaborate with people like The Trews and heroes from that country and it would be cool to see what it would be like to write with Kings of Leon or bands like that. Mainly, we are more focused on collaborating with each other. Everyone in our band knows what we want. We work well together. I guess it would be fun to collaborate with (KoL’s) Caleb Followill or The Tallest Man on Earth or someone like that but, again, these are big, big pipe dreams.
CB: You mentioned The Trews. I know you worked with (Trews guitarist) John-Angus MacDonald on your first and second EP. What was that process like and why did you choose him? I recently talked to Godsmack and they were talking about the role of their producer and that he keeps the peace and how they really trust and listen to him. Why did you choose MacDonald and how did you work together?
BE: When we chose him … he chose us actually. We were playing a competition and we won it. He was one of the judges and came up to me after the show and said he wanted to see what it would be like to produce one of our albums. My brother grew up going to Trews shows and we were all fans of The Trews. Basically, that was the most excited I have ever been in my entire life. It felt like our shot and it really was. He took a chance on us. We got into the studio and we started playing our tunes and listening to him and fighting with him a bit too on things.
We didn’t really look for a producer. At the time, I don’t think I even knew what a producer did. I had never had a producer on any of my albums before and I never really made an album that had cost any amount of real money. We got in there and he showed us the ropes of what it was like to work in a real studio. We let him go off when he had a good idea or a good pass. When I felt like what he was doing was against my vision, I’d take a hard stance and he’d have to prove me wrong or he’d listen to me. He was really the guy who found our band and took a chance on us. He is the reason we are doing this for a living right now. We love the guy and he has been so good to us. He is one of our best friends. He took us on tour. It has been such a great experience with him.
CB: It sounds like you guys are excited to be on the road. What is your craziest tour story so far?
BE: It was on our first tour in Canada. It was in late November, just before December. The snow was falling and it was starting to get really cold. The bus we were on broke down on the highway and was unfixable. We had to rent a U-Haul truck because it was the only thing that had a hitch on it and we weren’t going to leave our trailer that had all our gear in it. For two weeks, we slept in the back of a U-Haul moving truck while two people drove, in the Canadian cold. It was a tough couple weeks, but then again, we knew stuff like that was going to happen, if you spend your life on the road, especially with your vehicles. But you get over things like that. When we finally got off the U-Haul, we were home in Kingston. It made being home that much better.

Wednesday • Southgate House Revival

It isn’t everyday that a Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame member comes to town. But when one as talented as Ian
McLagan comes without much advance word, you have to worry if he’ll
attract the sizeable audience he deserves.

Singer/songwriter Tim Shelton, co-founder of the popular Bluegrass group NewFound Road, plays Newport’s Southgate House Revival tonight in the venue’s Revival Room.
Shelton’s solo career began when NewFound Road’s mandolinist decided he needed a break from the group. (Shelton was the only original member of the band at that point.)
“He’d been with me for seven years, so it caught me off guard,” Shelton says in his promo bio. “But I thought about it, and literally the next day, I decided, I’m done. I didn’t want to deal with reinventing NewFound Road, I’d been wanting to do other things musically, to go other places, and so I thought, now is the time.” (NewFound Road still does occasional tour dates.)
A southwestern Ohio resident, Shelton hit Ric Hordinski’s Monastery Studio in Walnut Hills this past summer to begin recording a solo effort full of material Shelton says will showcase a wider range of influence than just Bluegrass.
“I just want to make music that isn’t necessarily traditional Bluegrass. I love it, but I also love James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Rock, hard Rock, traditional Country — all of those. Just music. I think that people listen to the way I sing, and they assume I must be ‘going Country,’ but that’s not the direction I’m going. The vocals sound Country because it’s me, but I’m not setting out to try to make some huge-sounding, very produced record. I want it to sound good, I want the music to be played right, but I don’t want a wall of sound — I’m not trying to make a Rascal Flatts or Jason Aldean record.”
Shelton is offering a free download of his single “I Wish You Were Here” through his Facebook page here.
Here’s an earlier single Shelton released this summer called “Learning How to Live Alone”:
Tonight’s Southgate House Revival show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10.
Know of other good live music options for tonight in Greater Cincinnati? Share details in the comments.

Wednesday • Southgate House Revival

Did anyone believe that the decadent clan known as The Dandy Warhols would be around two decades after their formation in Portland, Ore.? Frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor will be the first to say, "No way."

Sunday • Southgate House Revival

Family in general and brothers in
particular can screw up a band like walnuts in lime Jell-O. The Kinks.
The Black Crowes. Oasis. The Blasters could qualify in that spotty
sweepstakes, at least to a certain extent.

Dave and Phil Alvin find 'Common Ground' in Big Bill Broonzy

Dave and Phil Alvin hadn't made an album together since Dave left The Blasters in the mid-’80s. But their longtime mutual love for Blues icon Big Bill
Broonzy recently brought them back together for a new full-length, Common Ground.

Thursday • Southgate House Revival

Just a few weeks ago, Daylight was out on
the road with Bayside, Four Year Strong and Cincinnati’s very own
Mixtapes, tearing things up good and proper and getting great notices
for their efforts. Apparently, lawyers were paying particular attention,
as well.

Tuesday • Southgate House Revival

Supergroups are problematic in that egos
and talent levels tend to cancel each other out, and musical
combinations that sound good in theory often implode in the execution
phase. The other musical construct that can be fraught with its own
particular series of pitfalls is the
musician-carrying-on-the-family-name scenario. Royal Southern Brotherhood would seem to
be flying in the face of a boatload of potential negatives as their
lineup reflects both situations.

Wednesday • Southgate House Revival

Girls Guns and Glory is an unusual entity
in this day and age, a fairly normal band that rides the rail of the
early Country music influences found in Rock & Roll. Still, they are
modern in their sensibilities and are not a part of the current retro
trend in roots music.